lantern lights
by hiroomi
Summary: And they weren't two unfamiliar faces in a crowd that knew each other as intimate as strangers but they were, they were two little lantern-light souls connected by a thread of red; little lights that found their way back together in the darkness, and she knew more about him in that moment than she did in a hundred lifetimes. - eren/mikasa, mikaere. oneshot.


**notes & dribbles**  
posted on my tumblr as well.  
prompt eighty one; _again. _

reincarnation!au fic, slight ooc-ness.  
mostly just cheesy eremika because face it, these two really need a hug.

* * *

**lantern**  
**lights**

* * *

_and they weren't two unfamiliar faces in a crowd_

_that knew each other as intimate as strangers but they were,_  
_they were best friends and lovers and two very lonely soldiers,_  
_they were two little lantern-light souls connected by a thread of red,_  
_little lights that found their way back together in the darkness_  
_and she knew more about him in that moment than she did in a hundred lifetimes._

* * *

The bus was five minutes late and Mikasa was becoming impatient. She shifted her weight, adjusted the at least three-pound backpack (university was a pain in the ass) and checked her watch for the fourth time in under two minutes.

She sighed and shoved her hands in her pocket, rocking on her heels. It was only November, but it was cold enough to be January, and her breath made little puffs that lasted in the air for a minute before fading away.

Pressing her lips into a thin line, she felt the holes in her coat and made a mental note to buy a new one (when she had the money, anyway). She worked the afternoon shift at a small, discreet coffee shop and though it was (barely) enough to pay the bills, it certainly wasn't enough for the luxury of new clothes. She shrugged-she'd just have to patch it up again with thread, it was no big deal.

Though it _was _a big deal the way the cold curved its way into her fingers and her neck, the way she could feel it creeping down her back. She shivered and ran an impatient hand through her hair.

Seven minutes now, Mikasa noted dully. The bus was honestly never this late before and of course it had to be late on the coldest day of the month. She let out a little huff of frustration and wiggled her numb fingers.

"Late," she heard a low voice murmur, "you're so late. I've been waiting a while."

She turned at the noise. _Oh, _a smug voice preened in the back of her mind, _have you forgotten that you're not the only one who's taking the bus today? _

She felt like punching it. Of course she knew that; she was just another college student, another unfamiliar face in the crowd of busy people.

Except the boy she turned and faced wasn't.

Brown, shaggy hair fell across his tanned skin. He was about her height, with an average build, but she could see the lines of lean muscle beneath his thin, green shirt. A bag hung carelessly off his shoulder and if she were to guess, he was one of the incoming students at Recon University. And his eyes, _Jesus Christ. _They were _green, _greener than she ever recalled seeing, bright and vibrant like the Caribbean sea.

But they were _old. _They were tired and ancient, she saw hundreds of lifetimes behind them, a soldier boy, a prince, a warrior - the hundreds of time he looked and looked and lost and died, only to be brought up again and again. His eyes saw the unfamiliarity in her own questioning gaze and it brought forth a wave of hurt there so strong it almost made her want to cry.

And suddenly her head _hurt, _suddenly there was a pressure, a sharp pain pressed into her mind and she winced, gasped as it pulled at the edges of her thoughts and pulled until they ripped.

"Are you alright?" He took a step towards her and then reached out, awkwardly letting his hand fall limply at his side when her eyes met his.

It was his eyes, it was his goddamned _eyes_ that were giving her a headache. There was nagging pressure, and it was so intense that she almost collapsed then and there. She saw bright, white flashes every time she closed her eyes -

_Are you alright? _

The words echoed in her mind, echoed again and again, past the lifetimes, back to The First, before everything, the _very first time, _when she wasn't just Mikasa but Mikasa Ackerman, one of humanity's strongest soldiers -

_("Are you alright?" _

_She didn't know why she bothered asking a question she already knew the answer to._

_The words were heavy in the air the minute they left her lips and she choked, fingers working quickly to bandage the gaping hole in his chest. She ignored the searing pain in her arm, the pain that melded into a startling nothingness._

_It was a miracle he was still even alive-_barely_, she saw how ghostly white he was, the way his eyes slowly dulled. All around her the sounds of the dying closed in, the last words and tears, they pressed themselves into her mind, chuckling gleefully, _you couldn't save him_, they whispered, _even you, even the mightiest _- _

_"Of course you're alright," she let out a sound that was somewhere between a sob and odd, silly laughter, "it's okay, you're going to be okay, I've got you."_

_"Stop," he muttered feebly, raising a hand to weakly push hers away from his chest. A sob caught in her throat. "Don't waste the bandages on me, look at your _arm_ -"_

_She didn't want to, didn't want to see the bleeding, ragged stump, didn't want to see where her elbow abruptly stopped, didn't want to feel the pain that she'd managed to ignore thus far-_

_Her fingers worked faster, numb to the pain and the cold._

_"I'm fine, look at you, you're bleeding..." She trailed off and her breath hitched. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. _

_"Fucking _hell_, Mikasa!" His eyes met with hers, a gaze that whispered _unforgivable_and she flinched away. "Your fucking arm is gone! It's going to get infected! You're always so _reckless,_throwing yourself into battle for me." He stopped, snapped his eyes shut tightly. _

_He was shaking and he snapped his eyes shut, long lashes dark and against the pale of his cheeks and they were thick with tears -_

_- and _Jesus Christ above_ there was so much blood, so much of it that it stained her pants and her hand and soaked into the bandages, there just wasn't enough - _

_Desperately, she ripped off her cape with her right hand, decided she'd use that to stop the bleeding, never mind that it was freezing cold, she'd be able to do it -_

_"Mikasa, I'm going to _die_." His words were soft-not angry, soft, defeated. It wasn't a question, it was a statement._

_A fact._

_She couldn't stop the muffled, anguished cry that left a burning in her throat and a lightheadedness that made her want to scream-_

_She swallowed and found her throat dry. "You're going to regenerate," she said calmly, primly, and wrapped the cape around him, "I'm going to bandage the wound and you're going to regenerate."_

_She sank lower to the ground, bit her lip and pretended people weren't dying all around him, pretended that he didn't tell her what she already knew-_

_The numbness, the feeling of an arm that wasn't was worse than the pain. There was a big gash on her thigh, big enough to need bandaging but she wasn't thinking about her, was only thinking about Eren and how he wasn't regenerating._

_"I'm not and you know it." His voice was pained and angry. "Why can't you _listen_ to me for once? You're going to die if you keep wasting those on me!"_

_"I don't care," was all she'd said, was all she _could_ say because her vision was swimming, because her skin was slick with sweat, tears and blood. _

_She tightened the tourniquet with trembling, weak fingers. The bleeding wasn't stopping. She panicked, felt her fingers twitch, felt her chest tighten and her throat was dry. Despair clawed at her throat, eager to escape in the form of a low cry._

_He wasn't even trying to mask that he was in pain now, she could see it in the way he shook and the frantic furling and unfurling of his fingers._

_"Mikasa," his breathing was ragged now and she didn't doubt that it was only his sheer determination that kept him alive, "promise me one thing."_

_She tightened the bandage._

_"Promise me one thing." His voice was stronger now, more desperate, more ultimate. Her fingers shook and the bandage begun to slip from her fingers. "Mikasa, _listen_-"_

_She interrupted him in a voice that was almost screaming._

_"You're going to be okay. It's okay. Everything is going to be okay. We are going to be fine. It's okay. It's okay. I've got you. It's okay."_

_Her voice came out in sharp, little bursts and it trembled at the end like a fragile house of cards and she tried not to think about how it was her fault, she should have been lying there with a pain in her chest instead of him, she should have protected him more, she shouldn't have let him go by himself it was her fault, _Jesus fucking Christ Eren don't you dare leave me here don't YOU DARE -

_"It's not," he was crying now because she had to waste the bandages on a dying man, she was always just as stubborn as he was, "it's not, Mikasa, it's not."_

_Her hand shook and the bandage fell from her fingers and she bit her tongue, bit it so hard she could taste blood (which had long since become familiar). Where were the medics? She whipped her head around, surely there were some soldiers left, they'd just won, this couldn't be happening, not Eren, not her Eren -_

_"Promise me." _

_She looked at him now and then tore her gaze away, focusing on the tattered, bloodied green of his cape and not soaked bandage hastily tied around his stomach. _

_"Promise me you won't forget."_

_She cried now, let her shoulders shake like she did the first time he met her, except nobody would come with warmth in their fingers to take her home this time. _

_"I won't," he was blurring, her speech broke, "I won't, I won't, I promise." _

_She shook, grasped his hand in hers, his cold, _cold_ hand and Eren was always so _warm _-_

_"I won't, I won't." Her voice had lowered to a breathy whisper that burned her throat as it left her lips. She rubbed his hand faster, like she could warm his hand up again and then he would open his eyes, so she just held him and didn't let go -_

_She wasn't even aware of the scream that finally escaped her when the hand went limp in hers.)_

Mikasa staggered backwards, felt the ground spin as everything in front of her melded into a mass of whirring colors and forgotten promises-

And then he was holding her, strong arms hooked around her waist. He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her neck and she could _smell _him, and he smelt like the wildness of the forest and the will of the water. The salt-sweet scent of the beach clung to him and there was something beneath even that, something back to The First, a reckless boy rising again and again with blood and battle weaving its way into his very spirit.

He let go, gently, and she could still feel his arms around her waist (_not from here but The First, The Very First when he said he'd be careful, wouldn't get eaten by titans, would return to her safe and sound). _

He wasn't The First but he was _hers, _he was The First and the ones after it rolled into one boy with the memories strapped to him like the weight of the world, a boy who wasn't quite hers but was, a boy who'd she'd held and then lost and then chased and then strayed from, a boy who dared connect the string of fate again, a boy who'd become hers all over again -

- he was the same boy whose determination had tied them together throughout the hundreds lifetimes (she'd lost count, by now).

And they weren't two strangers in a crowd holding on to intimacy but they were, they were best friends and lovers and two very lonely soldiers. They were two little lantern-light souls connected by red; little lights that found their way in the darkness again, and she knew more about him in that moment than she did in a hundred lifetimes.

She shivered involuntarily and her eyes flitted from the green of his eyes to the brilliant red on his scarf and she gasped, felt her hand go to her mouth and felt an ice-cold shiver run its way up her spine.

He took it off and wrapped it around her gently, a gesture not between two strangers, but between humanity's hope (a mere boy of fifteen) and one of humanity's strongest (a girl, she waits for him with her scarf blowing around her like a tongue of fire).

"I've been holding on to it for you," he said simply, and she didn't miss the shaking of his hands, the hunching of his shoulders as he began to cry, "I've waited, _so many times_, you're late, you're so late and you broke our promise _-_"

_("I won't, I won't, I won't."_)

The name hit her, sent a wave of nostalgia so strong she almost staggered again, except she didn't, only tucked her face into the scarf and pulled him close to her and held him, just _held _him because it'd been so long since she could -

"Eren," she breathed, and it _was, _her Eren, beneath the lifetimes of searching and the layers of birth and death and what came before and after, he was her Eren.

"It's okay," she felt his embrace tighten and felt his warmth, felt him shudder against her, "it's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

(_"It's okay, it's okay, I've got you, I won't let go this time, it's _okay_-)_

And it was.


End file.
